What a Rush

I was scheduled to work this morning at 9am so, naturally I showed up at 8:45. I don’t have my ID to get through security yet, so I waited for somebody from the kitchen to come up and get me. As we strolled through the long circular walkway that was home to many fine concession stands, I could hear the sound of hockey sticks hitting the hard pucks, and the pucks likely hitting their intended targets. I was only able to catch a glimpse of the Wild practicing, but it was pretty cool. Tomorrow is their first preseason game, and there was a lot of work to get done.

We entered the elevator and pressed M for dock. I also noticed the letter C was for the main floor. Anyway, the elevator moved slowly down to where I was told the kitchen would be. The guy was right. When the door opened, we were right in the middle of the storm. I stepped out and looked left, then right. I was surrounded on all sides by everything stainless steel. Prep counters and grilles, griddles, pots, pans, whisks, ladles, and more. Every cooking appliance I had ever used and more was there and in the biggest size I’d ever seen. I was in awe. I wasn’t nervous, but maybe a little intimidated. I shook hands with one of the chefs and he brought me back to the locker room and gave me a pair of 3X chef pants with no cinch and said that would have to do until more came in. We laughed about that, and he handed me a few towels for the day, and I went to change. I came back into the kitchen wearing only my boxers, and we all laughed at that, too. Ok that last part didn’t happen.

Here's where I’m glad that I remembered much more than I had forgotten in cooking. The term “Threw me to the wolves” was dead on accurate. The chef gave me a menu, not a prep list, a menu, and gave me a workspace (not an office). My job was to prepare the meals for all of the press that will be attending the event tomorrow evening. It’s only pre-season, so there will only be about 100 of them, “…so prep accordingly”. We went over a few details, and he said that almost everything as far as recipe was up to me. I could choose what to put in the salads, I could make my own brine (I made a maple bourbon that I think will be spectacular) for the pork loins, and, well, the rest of the menu was fairly self-explanatory. Tomorrow when I go in, I will be cooking everything that I prepped today, then serving it to the media. It was my first day and I was already responsible for feeding the broadcasters and reporters. It will most likely be my job for the season if I like it.

Here’s what I really like about this job; everybody has their own jobs and different tasks that they work on, so I never have to worry about anything other than what I’m doing. Does that make sense? There are several restaurants within the Xcel Center that are all run by us, Levy Restaurants, and they all have their own theme. I get to focus on one task, but I get to use some creativity, and I got to do this from day one.

I try not to toot my own horn too much, but I did really well, not just for a first day on the job scenario, but I think I killed it for any day. I felt really confident about everything I was doing, and once I stopped walking into the wrong coolers—there are like seven or eight of them—I think I might have even looked like I knew what I was doing.

 I worked next to a Mexican feller who has been there for five years. He is fast. His knife sounded like a hummingbird was in command when he was chopping away. I was nowhere near that quick, but I was impressed at how decent I still was after all of this time away. At the end of his shift, he said to me in his broken English, “No offense to you, most new white people take too many breaks, and don’t get anything done. You work hard all day. You get job done.” He told that to the chef, too. The chef asked me to stay late tonight, which I did, and asked me to come in three hours early tomorrow for the game. It’s going to be a 12-hour day, I haven’t done that in a while, but I know I have it in me.

This new job is going to be challenging, fun, and some other word I just can’t seem to come up with right now. I can’t wait to get there tomorrow.

After my day, I punched out, changed, and took the same route back. While I was working, there had been quite a change down on the event floor. The ice was gone, and the Lynx were taking practice shots. I only watched for a minute, but I thought it was pretty cool that I was the only audient (singular of audience that I just made up).